UPDATE, 4:50 PM: The Wolf Of Wall Street‘s Margot Robbie is also looking likely for Suicide Squad. It looked like she was going to star in Ghost In The Shell for DreamWorks, but those talks fizzled. I’ve heard DreamWorks has instead made a $10M offer to Scarlett Johansson, whose action price has risen to that level after Lucy and her work as Black Widow. Robbie, who stars alongside Smith in the upcoming Focus, should slip nicely into the Warner Bros film.

David Ayer: DC's 'Suicide Squad' Is "Dirty Dozen With Supervillains"
9:14 AM PDT 10/20/2014 by Graeme McMillan

Wondering what to expect from David Ayer's movie version of DC's Suicide Squad? The Fury director has a very simple pitch for his take. "It's a Dirty Dozen with supervillains," he told British movie magazine Empire, adding, "Does a movie really need good guys?"

The 2016 movie, Warner Bros' second in its newly announced schedule of DC Entertainment properties following Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, will be the fifth time the team — traditionally made up of supervillains working for the U.S. government in an attempt to commute their prison sentences — will be adapted for the screen. They have already appeared in episodes of Justice League Unlimited, Smallville and Arrow and were the focus of the recently released Batman: Assault on Arkham animated movie.

With Will Smith, Tom Hardy and Margot Robbie rumored to be in talks to appear in the feature, Ayer joked that he doesn't have a specific plan when it comes to casting. "I don't know what I'm going to do," he said. "I'm going to do what I do in my typical fever dream of directing."

"There's something incredible about the comic [medium], and technology has finally caught up with pen and ink to render these fantastic worlds in a way that feels believable and visceral to audiences," the director said, going on to praise fans for their passion. Calling comic book movies "a secular religion," he said that "the mythology that these characters represent — the idea of them as fallen gods on Earth — is intriguing to me. I can't wait to start exploring those corridors."

Suicide Squad is scheduled for release Aug. 5, 2016.

EXCLUSIVE: On the DC Comics-heavy slate that Warner Bros laid out for Wall Street last week, the film Suicide Squad was the only one lacking a clear identification to the superhero themed franchises that will dominate the slate through 2020. That might change. I hear that Warner Bros is in discussions with Jesse Eisenberg to take the Lex Luthor character he will unveil in Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice, and transfer the villain character to Suicide Squad. As Deadline reported, Will Smith and Tom Hardy are the being sought hard to star in the David Ayer-directed action film along with The Wolf Of Wall Street‘s Margot Robbie. Charles Roven is producing.